With a median price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of close to 0.8x in the Energy Services industry in the United States, you could be forgiven for feeling indifferent about Forum Energy Technologies, Inc.'s (NYSE:FET) P/S ratio of 0.3x. While this might not raise any eyebrows, if the P/S ratio is not justified investors could be missing out on a potential opportunity or ignoring looming disappointment.

Check out our latest analysis for Forum Energy Technologies

What Does Forum Energy Technologies' Recent Performance Look Like?

Recent revenue growth for Forum Energy Technologies has been in line with the industry. The P/S ratio is probably moderate because investors think this modest revenue performance will continue. If this is the case, then at least existing shareholders won't be losing sleep over the current share price.

Want the full picture on analyst estimates for the company? Then our free report on Forum Energy Technologies will help you uncover what's on the horizon.

How Is Forum Energy Technologies' Revenue Growth Trending?

The only time you'd be comfortable seeing a P/S like Forum Energy Technologies' is when the company's growth is tracking the industry closely.

If we review the last year of revenue growth, the company posted a worthy increase of 10%. This was backed up an excellent period prior to see revenue up by 51% in total over the last three years. So we can start by confirming that the company has done a great job of growing revenues over that time.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the sole analyst covering the company suggest revenue should grow by 0.7% per year over the next three years. That's shaping up to be materially lower than the 4.3% per annum growth forecast for the broader industry.

With this information, we find it interesting that Forum Energy Technologies is trading at a fairly similar P/S compared to the industry. Apparently many investors in the company are less bearish than analysts indicate and aren't willing to let go of their stock right now. Maintaining these prices will be difficult to achieve as this level of revenue growth is likely to weigh down the shares eventually.

What Does Forum Energy Technologies' P/S Mean For Investors?

Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

Our look at the analysts forecasts of Forum Energy Technologies' revenue prospects has shown that its inferior revenue outlook isn't negatively impacting its P/S as much as we would have predicted. At present, we aren't confident in the P/S as the predicted future revenues aren't likely to support a more positive sentiment for long. Circumstances like this present a risk to current and prospective investors who may see share prices fall if the low revenue growth impacts the sentiment.

A lot of potential risks can sit within a company's balance sheet. Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis for Forum Energy Technologies with six simple checks on some of these key factors.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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